Activism

Impeachment Just Got a Lot Closer

Congressman John Conyers has introduced three new pieces of legislation aimed at censuring President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and at creating a fact-finding committee that could be a first step toward impeachment.

In October 2012 we added the names HumansForPeace.org and HumanBeingsForPeace.org because we think such a group is needed. Veterans For Peace and Code Pink Women For Peace and various nationalities for peace are all terrific efforts. Humans For Peace is a way to include everyone. Join by making yourself a username and password on this site!

In May 2010 we renamed AfterDowningStreet.org WarIsACrime.org.

Please read When the World Outlawed War.

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." --UN Charter

By FAIR
June 17, 2005

One of the features of the newfound media interest in the Downing Street Memo is a profound defensiveness, as reporters scramble to explain why it received so little attention in the U.S. press. But the most familiar line--the memo wasn't news because it contained no "new" information--only raises troubling questions about what journalists were doing when they should have been reporting on the gulf between official White House pronouncements and actual White House intentions.

There are two important points in the Downing Street Memo, and media apologists have marshaled slightly different--though equally unconvincing--arguments as to why each did not deserve coverage. The first point is that the White House was intent on going to war long before it announced the decision to invade Iraq; "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action," the memo states, citing British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

Remarks for After Downing Street Rally at White House
Stephen Cleghorn
Military Families Speak Out
June 16, 2005

Good afternoon. I am Stephen Cleghorn, a member of Military Families Speak Out. My remarks will be brief because I have come simply to provide a little perspective from inside the world of military families. I am also here to stand in support of the call that Congressman Conyers and 88 other Representatives are making to investigate the revelations of the Downing Street Minutes and the British Briefing Papers. I believe that, if the press, the Congress and the courts have the courage to follow up on the leads given by these papers, we will see the case made for impeaching the President for lying to Congress to take us to war in Iraq.

Messengers of Truth
Untangling a Knot of Lies

Who thinks that President Bush misled us -- lied to us -- bamboozled us into invading and occupying Iraq?

He told Americans there were unmanned Iraqi aircraft that could drop bombs over our cities. His own intelligence agencies told him this was inaccurate. He tied Saddam to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden -- there was no evidence of that. He talked about Saddam being able to launch a strike on the United States in 45 minutes -- there was no evidence for this. He talked about the potential of a mushroom cloud over the United States -- a nuclear attack by Saddam -- there was no evidence for this. He used fear mongering tactics to scare people into supporting an unnecessary war. President Bush did not lie to us once, he did not lie to us twice -- he lied, and lied, and lied and lied -- for month after month. Because he and his minions repeated the lies so often many in the Congress and the media were fooled by their drumbeat of war lies and as a result the American people were fooled -- thousands of Americans were led to death or serious injury and more than 100,000 Iraqis were killed.

Rally to Support Rep. John Conyers and AfterDowningStreet.org's Demand for a House Resolution of Inquiry into Impeachable Offenses of George W. Bush

June 16, 2005 Washington, D.C.
Remarks by Mike Ferner, Veterans For Peace

Working as a Navy Corpsman during the Vietnam War, I took care of hundreds of young men who came home minus their arms and legs and sight and sanity. Unlike the fortunate sons who became today's powerful elite, working class kids of that generation were not able to claim "other priorities" to keep them out of the meat grinder. Many learned too late how to quit being good soldiers. So if my words today, spoken as young men and women die again for empire, sound a little sharp, I hope you will understand.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), Co-Chair of the Progressive Caucus, is circulating a letter to other Congress Members asking them to sign onto a Resolution of Inquiry.

While Lee's Resolution is unlikely to refer to the possibility of impeachment, it raises the same issues that AfterDowningStreet.org has been raising.

Her letter includes this request:

"Join me in cosponsoring a 'Resolution of Inquiry' to learn -- as the Downing Street memo indicates -- whether steps were being taken by the Bush administration to 'fix' intelligence and facts between the two countries around a decision to go to war."

State Dems: Impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld too
The Capital Times
By David Callender, June 13, 2005

Wisconsin Democrats are calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Loyalists at this weekend's state party convention in Oshkosh passed a resolution calling for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the three officials for their role in the war in Iraq.

The resolution contends that the administration "lied or misled" the United Nations, Congress, and the American public about the justification for the war. It cites the so-called "Downing Street memo" from British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, as well as reports from U.N. weapons inspectors as evidence of widespread deception.

By David Swanson, Afterdowningstreet.org

Last night I spoke about the Downing Street Minutes on Chris Moore's show at KDKA in Pittsburgh. He has covered the issue since May 1st.

Chris, a Vietnam veteran - unlike the microphone warmongers, has also been consistent in pointing out that we were deceived -- and he did so long before anyone dared say it in the corporate media.

Now management wants him to pay the cost. On Saturday evening he informed his audience that his Saturday evening show will be replaced by a music/talk format to appeal to a younger audience. This in spite of the fact that he is number one in his time slot of those in the 25+ age range.

AWAKEN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
By Michael Clark

Since June first, I've been publishing a series of diaries entitled "Awaken the MSM" at Daily Kos.

Initially these diaries were aimed at lifting the virtual news blackout on DSM. After a month of pushing for coverage, relatively little had been achieved. At the time, it seemed to me that if web-based activists continued to operate under our tactics up until that point--primarily a scatter-shot approach to contacting media outlets--we were unlikely to make significant progress soon. I wanted to begin a focused, coordinated, and above all sustained effort to get the attention of the news media.

San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday Opinion Section, full page on Iraqi labor unions

Text and photos by David Bacon

GET IT HERE

By The Heretik

There are many questions President Bush and Scott McClellan should be asked about the Downing Street Memo and related documents. Here are some from the Heretik:

QUESTION: Scott, in a recent briefing you claimed that you hadn't read the Downing Street Memo and it did not require a response Have you, the President, or anyone in the administration read this recently revealed July 21, 2002 British Cabinet Meeting Briefing?

QUESTION: Scott, what is President's response to the clear statement in the British ally's memo that British ministers were asked to quote agree to engage the US on the need to set military plans within a realistic political strategy, which includes identifying the succession to Saddam Hussein and creating the conditions necessary to justify government military action, which might include an ultimatum for the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq ?

MILITARY FAMILIES CHARGE BLAIR WITH WAR CRIMES -- WILL TAKE CASE TO INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
By Grace Reid, June 11, 2005

It has been widely reported that release of war documents from Downing Street finished Tony Blair in the last election. While that is true enough, the tide turned in the May 5th election when 10 bereaved families of British soldiers killed in Iraq confronted Tony Blair face to face, charging him with war crimes.

All the documentary evidence of Bush/Blair war crimes is now laid out for judicial review before the International Criminal Court, and, thanks to the BBC and the Sunday Times, for the inspection and review before the court of public opinion. This evidence is only now surfacing in the US -- through Knight-Ridder, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune. This is the beginning of the end of the war in Iraq, and the beginning of the end of George Bush, Alberto Gonzales, & the whole criminal gang.

But nothing, no bombshell memorandum, no tabloid headlines, no amount of media or public attention has had the impact of the grief wracked faces of the bereaved families of the military dead. Ten families have changed the course of the British government, the course of history in the illegal war in Iraq, and ultimately the fate of the Bush administration.

For Immediate Release: June 11, 2005

Military Families Against the War, in Britain, and AfterDowningStreet.org, in the United States, are working together to demand answers to the questions raised by the Downing Street Minutes and related evidence suggesting that the rulers of both nations conspired to deceive the public, Congress, and Parliament with regard to justification for the Iraq War.
Military Families Against the War is an organization of people directly affected by the war in Iraq. Our relatives and loved ones are members of the British Armed Services. We are opposed to the continuing involvement of UK soldiers in a war that is based on lies.

Counterspin: (6/10/05-6/16/05)

This week on CounterSpin: The Downing Street memo, minutes from a 2002 British intelligence briefing that indicate that the Bush administration was intent on invading Iraq despite its claims to the contrary, is being called a smoking gun--compelling, new evidence that Bush and Blair lied to get us into war.

So why does the U.S. press corps so far seem as uninterested in the memo as, well, as the White House would obviously like them to be? We'll hear from David Swanson, co-founder of the new coalition AfterDowningStreet.org

Please post as comments below the responses Congress Members and Senators send you to your Emails.

WAR IS A CRIME (FORMERLY AFTER DOWNING STREET) COALITION MEMBERS

Organizations and individuals interested in joining should contact us.

See also, the list of organizations supporting prosecution of Bush, Cheney, et alia.

Organizations

1% A Peace Army
A Bigger Tent
Action Center for Justice
Agir contre la guerre (France)
Alliance Marxist-Leninist (Marxist-Leninist Review)
America In Solidarity

On the Downing Street Minutes
by Senator Edward M Kennedy, Daily Kos
Tue Jun 7th, 2005 at 07:18:49 PDT
Cross-posted at www.tedkennedy.com

The contents of the Downing Street Minutes confirm that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war in Iraq, regardless of whether there was any credible justification for doing so.

The Administration distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.

Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2005 Monday, Home Edition
SECTION: CALIFORNIA; Metro; Editorial Pages Desk; Part B; Pg. 10

Re "Making Movie Love," editorial, June 2: Did you really mean to put this fluff on the editorial page? This junk belongs in the tabloids, not on the editorial page of a major newspaper.

How about talking more about the Downing Street memo of July 2002? This document has world-shattering implications.

But maybe that is exactly why the fluff appeared on your editorial page. Another red herring to distract us.

Christina Waldeck

Be polite, concise, informative, and passionate. Be like the author of the following letter -- even if she did just copy and paste our press release ;-)

Copyright 2005 MediaNews Group, Inc. and New England Newspaper Group Inc.
The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts)
June 1, 2005 Wednesday
SECTION: LETTERS
LENGTH: 412 words
HEADLINE: Learn the case for impeachment

BODY:
To the Editor of THE EAGLE:-

A coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups has announced a campaign to urge the U.S. Congress to launch a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The campaign focuses on evidence that recently emerged in a British memo containing minutes of a secret July 2002 meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials.

By Arianna Huffington

Follow the Memo: Can Redford and Hoffman Play the Entire Blogosphere in the Downing Street Memo Movie?
In his otherwise terrific insider�s take on the Deep Throat story, former Washington Post editor and columnist Bob Levey says that the "next Watergate" won�t happen without "Big Journalism." I couldn�t disagree more. It will happen in spite of Big Journo... and because of the "little journalism" of the blogosphere.

Take the biggest under-reported story of the moment (at least in America): what the Downing Street Memo reveals about the Bush administration and how it led us into the Iraq war.

Here's an article from the St. Petersburgh Times that was generated by a local demonstration at a TV station. Does that give any of you ideas?

Note that the reporter called me David Dawson, probably as a result of the quality of cell phone service in the hotel in DC where the Take Back America Conference chooses to convene. But, he quoted me accurately and he and his editors MENTIONED THE ISSUE AND DID SO HONESTLY. Please thank them!
--David Swanson

The "Downing Street Memo" indicates an agreement on invading Iraq in July 2002.
By KEVIN GRAHAM

By weldon berger at DailyKos
Fri Jun 3rd, 2005 at 22:05:23 CST

Many, many people seem to be under the impression that the White House has not commented upon the Downing Street Memo.

That's wrong: They have. My White House writer, Eric Brewer, posed a question about it to Scott McClellan at the May 23 White House briefing, and McClellan very carefully avoided disputing that Straw and Dearlove said what the minutes describe them as saying or that what they said was true.

Here's Eric's question and McClellan's response:

Eric Brewer: Scott, last week you said that claims in the leaked Downing Street memo that intelligence was being fixed to support the Iraq War as early as July 2002 are "flat-out wrong." According to the memo, which was dated July 23, 2002, and whose authenticity has not been disputed by the British Government, both Foreign Minister Jack Straw and British Intelligence Chief Sir Richard Dearlove said that the President had already made up his mind to invade Iraq. Dearlove added that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Do you think these two very senior officials of our closest ally were "flat-out wrong"� And if so, how could they have been so misinformed after their conversations with George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice?

The Democratic National Committee has noticed this issue.

Here's the DNC's posting. You can add comments there letting people know about our campaign.

And here's how you can contact the DNC to thank them, encourage them, and urge them to add the concrete proposal of asking Congress to introduce a resolution of inquiry.

Those inclined to organize peaceful nonviolent demonstrations aimed at asking Bush or members of his administration about the Downing Street Minutes may benefit from this schedule of upcoming appearances.

Friday, June 3, 2005
ROMNEY in Manchester, NH: MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) heads to NH 6/3 to speak to the state Federation of GOP Women's annual Lilac Convention; the women's group is the same one that hosted Pres. Bush in '99 on his first campaign visit there. Bay State GOP exec. dir. Tim O'Brien said that Romney will be talking about "balancing the budget and creating jobs" in MA. O'Brien "downplayed" the trip's implication for pres. politics: "Gov. Romney is a national political figure just like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry who go across the country raising money for their party. I wouldn't read too much into it. People go raise money for their party and that's what the governor is doing here" (Straub, Boston Herald, 5/26).

Send a spine postcard to your congress member!
The Backbone Campaign writes:

Please join us in sending Spine postcards to your Senators and members of Congress to let them know they should join the Inquiry into the Downing Steet Minutes/Memo. You can click here to download a pdf file that can be printed on cardstock or other paper and sent to you members of congress. This version of the pdf file refers directly to the Downing Street Minutes/Memo issue.

By Congressman John Conyers
Thu Jun 2nd, 2005 at 12:27:04 PDT, DailyKos

I wanted to update you about the Downing Street Minutes letter. Late last week, just before the holiday weekend, I asked for your help in getting 100,000 signatures on a letter to the President asking for answers about the Downing Street Minutes. (For those who have not yet heard about the minutes, they detail a meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers, during which Blair and his advisers reveal details about pre-war conversations with their American counterparts. These details cast substantial doubt on the honesty of contemporaneous claims made by the Administration to Congress and to the American people about the Iraq war. For more information go here and here.)

If you speak face-to-face or by phone or Email with your family members, neighbors, and friends, we would love to hear what they think of the Downing Street Minutes, especially if you convince someone that a congressional investigation is needed. How did you persuade them? What did they start out thinking? What did they learn from you? What did you learn from them? Please open this article and post Comments at the bottom.

Here are some updates on the U.S. media's interest in evidence of a U.S. president lying and causing tens of thousands of deaths...or lack thereof.
New York Times Answers Media Blackout...or doesn't
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/2/21541/96836

MEMO IS OPINION; MINUTES ARE FACTS
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/2/01051/68823

HOW TO TELL NY TIMES PUBLIC EDITOR Byron E. (Barney) Calame WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND

"This is a test of the left-wing blogosphere," said FOX News. "In many ways that memo might prove all of the arguments the critics of the war have made. But the bulk of Americans don't agree, or don't seem that alarmed, so it is a power test to see if they can drive it back on the agenda."

This statement was made by a Fox News employee quoted by Fox News. This is a news organization openly admitting that they will not cover a story based on its importance to a large number of people, but might do so if a politcal force pushes it hard enough. And this was said in an article that also argued that the Downing Street Minutes are worthless and tell us nothing new.